He wasn't just out front. In making Section 101 arguments in 2009 for a key client facing a high-stakes patent infringement suit, Matthew Moore was in another race.

Long before the Supreme Court's Alice v. CLS Bank International ruling made Section 101 of the U.S. Patent Act a patent holder's worst nightmare, Moore, the Washington-based global co-chairman of Latham & Watkins' intellectual property practice, was using it to help get Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac) out of a costly suit that grew to include 614 claims.

It took eight years — as the case stalled on a court's crowded docket — but Moore's strategy on patentable subject matter prevailed in May with an affirmance by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.